Roscoff

Roscoff, on the north coast of Brittany, is a ferry port connected to Great Britain and beyond; while it has some beaches and some spas, its tourists mainly seem to swarm the small old town when arriving from or waiting for their ride across the Channel. Here's part of the main street before the next surge of passengers arrives.

The ferry goes to its own deep water pier that's a ways away from the old port, which is the center of some of the more traditional work in Roscoff, fishing and seaweed.

I spent two summers in Roscoff as a small child and then one just before high school while my father worked at the marine station there, so this was a visit to old (old!) haunts. We got a room in a nice hotel just across the place from the building where my family stayed back in the '60s and '70s, with this view looking right back at the windows we looked out of from our tiny apartment.

Riding from Roscoff along the coast offers pretty countryside and a lot of ocean views, much as the roads out of Auray do.

 

Tides in Auray and the Golfe du Morbihan are dramatic, but in Roscoff they are even more so. That white thing out there is a boat on the mud, for now:

A boat ramp at neighboring St Pol de Leon:

This will be underwater again in just a few hours:

Many people take advantage of a low tide to hunt for shellfish.

Roscoff's harbor empty:

and full:

Just behind our hotel, low tide:

High tide:

Agriculture is also huge in the area, so we looked at a lot of crops on our rides. Lots of onions.

Gathering them after some drying means working on one's hands and knees.

This technique of covering some kind of greens or herbs was new to us:

And we had not seen a predator-shaped kite used as scarecrow before.

We do see a lot of artichokes along our roads at home, but these plants are smaller, with the artichoke flowers sitting up higher on stalks making pretty rows, still harvested by hand.

Poppies make an especially nice addition to a cover crop, I think.

We found it easy to follow the voie verte cycling route signs we came across, if we kept our eyes open, and began to keep the faith that these lead us to really special routes, from dirt farm roads we would not have tried to tiny lanes we would not have found on our own.

If we don't come home, just check whether we've moved into this nice chateau...